


Still Remains

by VioletHellfire



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Former Life, Hurt, Intrusive memories, Love, Memories, Mild Blood, Past, confused feelings, junkertown - Freeform, mild PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 16:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30024540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletHellfire/pseuds/VioletHellfire
Summary: "She holds my hand, we share a laughSipping orange blossom breezesLove is still and sweat remainsA cherished gift unselfish feelingOh, I'd beg for you, oh you know I'll beg for youPick a song and sing a yellow nectarineTake a bath I'll drink the water that you leaveIf you should die before me ask if you could bring a friendPick a flower hold your breath and drift away"-Stone Temple PilotsStill Remains
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Still Remains

"Incoming enemy sighted."

He stood there, gently swaying from side to side in anticipation, eyes peering over the worn wood and glass of the makeshift shelter. There was a small bubble of a giggle that tumbled past his lips, barely contained, as he drew his tongue over his lips. Anytime now. He couldn't wait. 

"Estimated time to target point, 4 minutes."

The mission was going to be a fairly simple one; intercept the enemy at the choke point, and retrieve the payload. They had done this probably half a dozen times before since Overwatch reformed, and each time it came with more guards, more Omnics, and more danger. The last time they did this, it resulted in one of them nearly losing their head in a surprise drop, bullets and shrapnel flying in every direction, biting into every surface within half a mile of the area. When it was all said and done, Winston could only count his blessings it wasn't worse. Far worse.

Good thing he was already half a robot himself. So what if his arm or leg got blown off? He'd just build a new one. He'd done it before, right?

A wide grin spread over his face as he looked down, prosthetic flexing against the trigger of frag launcher. The paint was chipped and corroded, but the insides ran smooth and fluid, almost as if he had never lost it. Really, other than the knuckle joints getting occasionally snagged in his hair, he never even missed it. 

His eyes gently stayed on it for the moment, eyes fixed on the metal and artificial sinews, a strange sense of something rising up his spine, the tap-tapping of metal on metal that his fingers had been doing this whole time becoming arrhythmic. He felt his face go slightly slack, the sensation of something far-reaching tickling the back of his mind, rolling, calling to him.

With a blink, he saw a pair of hands, wrapped gently around his prosthetic. Heard some soothing words. And then, a crackle of pain as the new limb connected to the nerve outputs.

He shook his head. It seemed familiar, but he didn't know why. Did that happen to him? It was hard to tell. It seemed so real. Maybe. Or maybe it was from a movie he had watched one night. Or maybe he just made it up. Despite having been away from the fallout for some time now, he found his brain starting to play little tricks on him. At least, that's what it felt like...little tricks. 

He didn't like it. He didn't like things he couldn't hold on to, didn't like things he couldn't take apart, didn't like things that confused him. It always made things feel less stable than they were. And if dealing with explosives had taught him anything, its that unstable things were very rarely a good thing to have. 

People had always told him _he_ was unstable, though. The thought of it made a quiet, high-pitched titter escape his lips. 

He idly brushed his forehead with his wrist, stale residual soot from that morning scratching the itch that formed. Weirdly, that felt...somehow different too. In a way he couldn't describe. Different like it happened before. Somehow. In a way that made him feel--

_A hand on his face. On his broken face._

_And then the rough sweep of something old and damp rubbing his skin._

He paused, eyes locking. It was happening again. That thing, that... _thing_...that made pictures float in and out, like a discordant movie, flashes and images forming something out of the ether, like he knew them, like he lived them, like they were his own. Those little tricks again. 

"Three minutes. Are we ready?"

That was his cue. His cue to affirm that the bombs were set, and the traps were lain, and that as long as those bots kept to the path, this should be one of the simplest jobs to date. He looked over at his left hand, detonator snug between his rough fingers. His thumb brushed against the lid to the button. All he had to do was press it--

And then he saw it. 

_Blood, pools of blood._

_A body on the ground, nearly motionless._

_Then something like a stab of panic racing up from his gut, like a torch freshly set on kindling._

His face dropped entirely. Not now.

He forced out a whimper of laughter, only a syllable of it actually leaving through his pushed effort. His breathing started to pick up, his body fighting it, fighting that feeling, that thing, that made him curl with discontent, made bile build up in the back of his throat, made his eyes burn with things he never wanted to keep. 

Not now. Not now...

*

She stood there, tall and worn, hand cocked on her hip. 

"It's ok." he heard her say, voice warm and soft, but still so full of smoke. Her hair hung over her face as she leaned in, the jagged auburn cut flopping listlessly over the covered part of her face. She reached up with one hand, gently smoothing the back of his shirt in small circles. 

"It's gonna hurt." she said, gingerly holding the arm in her own, "But that's ok. It'll only be this one time." 

She smiled at him, soot speckled on her cheeks, desert sand and oil marking lines in her skin as it mixed with the sweat rolling down her neck. Her hand never stopped moving. Despite there not being too much of a difference in size, her hands always felt so large on his small frame. It was strange, but he always took comfort in the fact.

She didn't wait for him to say anything. She poised the arm up to where his ended, and paused, if only for a second, before giving it a final shove, a loud click letting her know she had it right. 

And then his arm was pierced with an erratic bolt of lightning, the angry feeling spreading across his arm, his neck, even the back of his head. He withered, jaw clamping down, fighting with all he had to not scream out. It was late, but he didn't care. He just didn't want her to worry. Not her. Not about him.

"It's ok, Jamie." she said gently pulling him into a hug, calloused hands softly running over the top of his arm, shirt fluttering beneath, "It's ok."

More than anything, he wanted to believe her.

Her name...what was her name?

*

"Junkrat." he heard, distantly, directly in his ear. His head was floating, high above where his body stood, rigid.

Not now. Not now. His canine reached his lip, intentionally chewing it. Stop.

He could feel a wash of blood curl into his cheeks, as the feeling...that feeling started sinking in. 

Not now.

*

"6 am. Don't forget." she said, shooting him a half-serious stare. "I'm not gonna come get ya if you oversleep."

"I got it!" he said, face breaking into a small smile. "Jeeze. Ya act like me mum." 

She wasn't, and he knew that. He didn't know how, but part of him did. She was older, true, but not by too much. And she was still there for him, every day, whenever he needed her. He didn't know how or why it came to be, or even what their relationship was, just that they cared for each other, in their own way. Always had, for as long as he was aware. Maybe it was something with Junkers themselves, he thought. Each of them had their own families, either made or formed. And she was his, just as he was hers. 

Her face faltered for a second. "Yeah...well...I mean it." she said, recovering easily enough, shooting finger guns at him before turning back, walking toward her own bed, across Junkertown. He watched her go, down the corridor, boots scuffing on metal, taking a sharp left at the end.

Whenever she was gone, he felt it. He felt something...something there, that he didn't like. Just like all those times before, just like now. Something strange, something drifting. Something that he didn't know the word for, but something he was sure he couldn't ask her about. It was annoying at worst, and concerning at best, but he had learned at this point how to keep his attention away from it. It was the only thing that made the feeling go away.

Bombs. Explosives. Things he was good at. Things he _got_ good at. Things he could work on. Things he could look forward to. Like tomorrow. They were getting together with some of the other guys to go pick over a wreck, and this time they had access to a truck. And a truck meant more to haul back, more to pawn, more to tinker with. It was gonna be a good day, for sure. 

With a grin, he took two uneven steps toward his own place before he realized he knew when, but he didn't know _where_. 

He was sure she told him at some point. It wasn't unusual for her to remind him a few times. About anything, really. She usually did. She knew how he worked, and how despite how hard he tried sometimes, that swinging lightbulb in his head just would sometimes flicker out from time to time. Moreso now, that he was getting older. Well, in Junker terms, anyway. 

He considered just meeting her in the morning at her place. But even then, it would be a gamble if she had left early that day or not. It was just how she was.

So he turned, walking slowly down those familiar hallways, the light tick-tack of his own footsteps grazing steel, before turning sharply left.

He paused, just outside her door. He had been here hundreds of times before, he had even slept on her floor some nights, but already her lights were dim. He knew she couldn't have fallen asleep so quickly...rest never came easy for either one of them. Never did, unless they were both looking at the bottom of a bottle some nights. Should he...knock? Nah, that was too formal. That wasn't them. She'd probably laugh at him for trying.

Cautiously, he slid the door open, the question just on the tip of his tongue. 

And it died before it was even said.

She stood there, in the din of her bedside light, washcloth slowly dragging down her bare arm, cresting over her chest, smoothing down her open torso. Soap and an open basin were laid right out on her dresser, the blue glow of the lamp dancing over the puddles forming on the sides...she was cleaning herself. 

The water ran in colored lines down her skin, ruddy drips traveling the ridges and scars of her flesh, tiger stripes and splattered valleys crisscrossing over her from the years of what life gave her, rivets of small metal dotting her in a galaxy that spoke of who she was, where she came from. He vaguely remembered some of them, or at least her telling him about them. But he had never seen them. Or her, like this. 

He stood there, mute, and transfixed.

He could feel that something come back, and it filled his cheeks with something bordering on sunshine and fire, like too much gunpowder blossoming to life deep within him, heavy, whole and pure. 

Suddenly, he didn't know what to do anymore.

Her name. Her name was...

*

"Two minutes. Junkrat, can you hear me?" Jack seemed impatient now. "Answer."

He wanted to. He really wanted to. But he couldn't feel himself anymore. His head was so far and away, that it all felt like a dream now. He could feel his eyes blinking more than they probably should and his breathing stiffen and labor, and that strange coil wrap around his middle, crawling, tickling, irritating its way to his chest.

"You ok, man?" he heard from behind. 

Not now. Not now. Not now.

Stop. Stop, stop.

*

"You're a mess, Jamie." she said, the corner of her mouth quirking downward. She pressed a rag to the top of his head, dabbing away whatever dirt and blood she could. "I _told_ you."

"I know." he said, solemn. She had. Several times. He just didn't listen. 

"Then...why? Ya like spitting teeth?" she asked, tone bordering on a scold.

"No." he said, letting his eyes fall before looking back up at her. Since that night, that strange night so many nights ago, he couldn't look at her the same way. There was something...something more there now, and he simultaneously hated it and wanted more of it. It made him think weird, it made him act weird. Was this normal? He didn't know. It didn't feel normal. "They were gonna stiff me, though."

"Stiff you?" she asked, good eye squinting, "So what? You're lucky they didn't fuckin' kill you!" Her hands moved to ever-growing grape over his eye, sighing. "Idiot..."

He knew he was. He knew what he did wasn't smart, not in the least. But the money...it was all about the money. He needed it. Lots of it. More than he could carry. It would fix everything. It would make him happy.

His eyes flitted over to the covered part of her face. He knew. She never told him, but he knew. She was sick. Had been, had always been. He didn't think much of it before, but ever since he saw her, really saw her, and felt... _that_...it somehow meant more. It hurt him, and he didn't know why. And he needed to fix it. 

At first, it was just her eye, but as time went on, it seemed to take more and more of her face, the thick cloth she used to cover it taking more and more of _her_ with it. Junker sickness. He'd seen it before. He was an idiot, sure, but he wasn't stupid. 

Money, though...money could fix anything. It could fix her. He was sure of it. That's why all the rich folk never got sick, right? He just needed to get enough of it. 

He remembered hearing about a fancy new bank opening a dozen or so branches just over the water. He had never done any kind of stealing on that kind of scale before, but for her...he would try. He'd try anything, really, if it meant he could save her. He _needed_ to save her.

Her name. Her name...

What was her name?

*

"One minute. Junkrat, are we ready? Respond." his tone bordered on a command and a shout. He was getting anxious. 

But he couldn't. He was frozen, a prisoner in his own mind, some vintage life lain before him playing out to his unwilling witness. His eyes started to blur, unfocused, as the air around him seemed to blanket his lungs in thick wool, scratchy, spongy, constricting. He could feel his good leg start to tremor gently beneath, starting with curling his toes almost painfully against the sole. It was only a matter of time before it would overtake the rest of him. He had to focus. Had to. 

He screwed his eyes shut, the heel of his flesh hand digging into the socket, detonator scratching his lids. He forced out a mute sound, something he hoped came across as his usual warble. He had no way of knowing though. He just hoped. 

He looked up. Saw eyes on him. It felt intense, like they were studying him, trying to make sense of whatever was going on. It felt bad in ways he couldn't describe.

The mission. The mission. He was on a mission, he reminded himself. He was gonna get to blow up some Omnics. Almost legally, at that. And then be thanked for it. He'd get to rip the sky apart with explosives, and then take their cargo. What could be better?

He forced himself to look at the detonator in his hand. Just one push. One push, and it would rain steel and oil for days. His thumb flicked the cap open, hovering unsteadily over the shiny red button. Just one push. Just one.

Just...one.

Just--

A spark of light, and his body nearly melted inside as those thoughts came back, derailed like a train out of control.

Not now. Please. Not now.

Stop stop stop stop.

Please.

Not now.

*

He could see her, on her side, skin paling and discolored.

She was alone, practically swimming in blood...whether it was hers or not, he didn't know. Just that there was a lot of it. Too much of it. And she was barely moving when he found her.

He scrambled. He grabbed the shirt off his back and shoved it up against the biggest of the damage, hands shaking as he did. His head flared with a shrill sense of confusion, skin going numb to the touch, teeth gritting wildly, fighting whatever he was feeling from second to second. Why? Why? Not her. Not her. Anything but her. 

He was panicking, and he knew it. 

"They're after it..." she said, words slurred, "...your treasure."

"I'll fucking kill whoever did this...." he said, words cracking with venom, almost not hearing her. He couldn't process anything, he just felt. Hot, raw, and broiling.

She swallowed thickly, split lips barely parting. "They're coming back, Jamie."

"Let them!" he shouted, teeth bare, "They're dead! All of 'em! Fucking dead!"

"They'll kill you too." she said, voice just more than a whisper.

He looked her in the eye, the light in it slowly fading out right before him. She was dying. He could tell, as plain as anything. He didn't want to accept it, but she was, slowly, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. 

Why? Why? It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to get the money, all the money, when he sold his secret. And then he was going to get her help. Then he was going to make their lives better. Maybe even leave this shithole outright. Then they could live the rest of their lives, not having to worry about a thing. They'd take care of each other. They'd be together. Always. Until the end. 

But...her end was here. Now. 

There wasn't going to be a "they" anymore. 

All his plans, all his efforts, all his dreams he had...gone.

He fucked up. He didn't know how, but he did. 

And he couldn't fix it.

He couldn't fix her. 

He sat back on his foot, good hand coming up to ram the heel of his palm into both eyes, rubbing as hard as he could as the other held tightly to the over-saturated shirt. He felt bloodless, face twitching as he held in his breath, refusing to give into his helplessness. This too, he was losing.

He let go a shuddering huff of air, the prickle of unspent tears on the bridge of his nose. "There's no treasure." he finally said.

"I know." she said, eye fluttering. It wasn't long, now.

He grabbed her hand, with both of his, and pressed it to his cheek, relishing in the cold, weak pulse just underneath. It was all he had, now. "I...I did it for you." he said, barely keeping himself together.

Weakly, she brushed her thumb against his face, cerise arcs painting his face. 

"I know."

He held her. Held her as she faded, held her as she gave her last breath, held her as she grew stiff and still. He stayed there, feeling the wetness around him chill and stick, keeping the both of them bound to the floor. He stayed there, folded over her, as if he could still protect her, as if he could still be there for her, as if any of it mattered anymore. 

He screamed, voice breaking.

Her name. Gods, what was her name?

*

"Thirty seconds! Junkrat! Respond!" Jack sounded like a mix of angry and confused.

So was he. 

*

He had gathered her body, wrapped in the best blankets he owned, and took her to a spot outside of Junkertown. There, he wordlessly laid her down on a bed of wood and brush, and stood a good ways back. He never much was one for words. Not like he had any anymore. But he could at least send her off the best way he knew how. Bright, beautiful, and breathtakingly powerful. The only way he wanted to remember her.

He looked down at the detonator in his hand.

*

"Junkrat!" he was barking into the comm, now.

A large hand came up and clapped his shoulder. Almost instantly, his face snapped up, staring directly into the leather pig mask behind it. A few seconds later, a second hand came up on his other, the blue and black neoprene creaking under its grip, as it kneaded, feather-light.

And just like that, he fell back to Earth, limbs and mind granted access to one another once again.

He sucked in a hard breath. 

And calmly, he tapped the comm. 

"She's alllll good!" he said, nearly chipper, earning him a wooden grunt on the other end. 

He raised the detonator to his chest, a slow, anesthetized, tingling something spreading across his body as he heard the countdown start in his earpiece. This is what he knew. This is what he was good at. This is where he belonged. 

Nowhere else.

He wasn't done. What happened in the Outback wasn't over. He'd use Overwatch and their access to places, and use them to supply him with what he needed and when. It was only a matter of time. He didn't care about Overwatch's overarching mission. He didn't care about becoming some hero. And he already had enough money. Signing up was never about the money. 

He didn't need it, anyway. 

"Now!" Jack said, urgent, but still in control.

His thumb plunged the shiny red button down with a muted click. In the distance, he could hear the low, thundering rumble of a job well done, mechanical screeching and gnarled bits of scrap raining down from the clouds in fat, twisted pieces. His teammates sighed faintly in relief in their own way, the both of them staring out at the window, eyes never moving from the point where the payload sat, now completely unguarded by...anything.

Junkrat turned, dropping the detonator, and letting his frag launcher go slack, the nose of the gun just scraping the ground under his hunched posture. He cocked his head ever so slightly as each piece came falling down to the barren land, almost musically, as each clank and spring thwacked on the wood above them. He let out a contained snicker as a languid, rictus smile came over his face, splitting it nearly in two.

Her name. He remembered her name.

He...remembered.

He remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first Overwatch fic I wrote, just a few short months after I started playing, and I had based it solely on what Junkrat looks like on the character select screen and his many confused expressions. I held onto it for reasons which are unknown to me now, but I was encouraged by a friend to finally put it on Ao3. So, here we are. 
> 
> The title of this fic comes from an STP song of the same name. Go give it a listen.
> 
> And as always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. :)


End file.
